Hardcore nonstop White Whale slaying.

[SNESdrunk]

Super Tennis For SNES
This wasn't a game that got much play as a kid, but it got just enough play that I have some sentimentality. I love the 'Rats' excalamations when you use and the side change music. Unfortunately, I really suck at the game though. I'm not even sure I've won a single tournament, although in all honesty I've not given it much of a go.

Love this game, and I have beaten it. My only advice would be to pay attention to the wonky unconventional timing. You gotta be just ahead of the ball when you hit it. Also play as John, he hits the ball way harder than anyone else.

[SNESdrunk]

Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis) - Ecco is my "white dolphin" game. I have made three attempt to beat this game, and I recognize its qualities. I just can't seem to stick with it long enough to get through it, however.

This is a big one for me, I love the look and feel of this game, and I love how weird it is. But in no universe will I ever be able to beat it.

[nullPointer]

Cool topic! One game in particular jumped immediately to mind as a long standing nemesis:

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode (NES): I couldn't really bring this up during the Summer Games Challenge since this game's status as a "classic" is a bit questionable. It's also questionable whether this is even much of a good game. But one thing that can't be questioned is that this was an incredibly ambitious game, especially for the NES. It's a side scrolling shooter, it's a S'HMUP incorporating both aircraft and submarines, it's a first person dungeon crawler (with grenades!), it's a diving game, it's a visual novel with dating sim elements (heh), it has rudimentary FPS elements. The scope of what Vic Tokai was attempting here is remarkable. Whether or not they were able to successfully meet that vision is debatable, but long story short I (mostly) enjoy this game. At any rate I've attempted to beat it on multiple occasions. Each time it takes a while to hone my skills and find my rhythm once again, but after some playtime I'm generally able to reach the DREK base with minimal loss of life/continues. But that final boss ... holy balls that final boss. The game goes into it's rudimentary first person shooter mode with a countdown timer. Here you have two choices; you can focus fire on the boss but take heavy damage from the missiles it shoots or you can focus fire on those missiles so as not to take damage, but this in turn eats away at the countdown clock. I've never beat this SOB, and at some point I feel like I owe it to myself (as well as to Duke Togo) to do so. One of these days ...

[ejamer]

Cool topic! One game in particular jumped immediately to mind as a long standing nemesis:

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode (NES): ...

Haven't thought of this game for ages. Not one I care about going back to beat - but it really was an interesting and ambitious title back in the day!

[Xeogred]

Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis) - Ecco is my "white dolphin" game. I have made three attempt to beat this game, and I recognize its qualities. I just can't seem to stick with it long enough to get through it, however.

This is a big one for me, I love the look and feel of this game, and I love how weird it is. But in no universe will I ever be able to beat it.

It's worth noting that the CD version has additional checkpoints in the levels... making it just a tad more doable.
http://sega.wikia.com/wiki/Ecco_the_Dolphin

Still, it's brutal. I only got a few levels into Tides of Time, I like how it immediately picks off where the first game left off of and is instantly in Legendary Ultra-Violence Dante Must Die Hard mode.

[Key-Glyph]

All right, I'll admit it. Ecco the Dolphin is pretty much my most important series of all time, but I've always needed to cheat to get past one particular level of the first game. All this time I've considered it beaten anyway, because as a kid I'd die before I even knew what to do, and I just considered it too unfair.

I'll go back and do it right soon. Then I'll consider it completed.

[ExedExes]

I'm only mentioning this as a game that could have been a whale, but the connection lies herein with the original thread starter, Exhuminator.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC).

Difficult missions, enemy AI that was cranked up to 11, and very few checkpoints. I was ready to give up some nights had it not been for someone like him who walked down this path of pain previously and who offered valuable advice and support. I've never seen an FPS as tough a this.

From start to finish, 12 pages in the FPS progress thread later, a fellow "Ex" came along with this Ex to get the job done.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Ocarina of Time. Don't know [img]why[/img], but this is one Zelda game that I just flat out cannot stay with. The farthest I've ever made it was the Desert Temple. The game just never clicked with me for whatever reason. It sits on the shelf, taunting me, laughing at me like the Mask Salesman. I honestly think the three mini-dungeons in the child section dragged too much for me. I'm not really sure though, as every other Zelda I've touched, has been gold.

Harvest Moon 64 The game does essentially have an "end" after the first two years, but I've never actually made it that far. I want to, I feel like I have to, the haunting melody of the poorly recorded rain noises wafting through the air to my eardrums as I churn the ground to make a measly living. I've just never sat down and truly had the time to get down to it.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Make it to the second year, find the monotony of living on a farm with a wife who says one repeated phrase maddening, while already having the best available cattle in the game, start over, marry different girl, repeat until I sold the game. Still haunts me.

Pikmin This game. Failing my travels in space, and crash landing on a planet full of giant ass bugs trying to kill me at every turn, I use turnip people as slaves to further my goals. However, I am a poor slave master, and a perfectionist, and find myself aggravated at their failed workings. As such, I huff, and return to greener pastures. I will one day conquer this damned planet of bugs and semi-intelligent plant creatures, but that day is not today.

There are a handful of other games also. The completionism bug has hit me, and playing new games where I don't even have the possibility of gaining all the trophies, or would have to grind like hell on a game where I feel somewhat ambivalent to a second playthrough is maddening. I honestly wish you could turn them off, or remove trophies you do not wish to see. Being on PSN Profiles makes me question my dedication as a gamer, and the dedication that those on the site have to the rest of their lives.

[alienjesus]

All right, I'll admit it. Ecco the Dolphin is pretty much my most important series of all time, but I've always needed to cheat to get past one particular level of the first game. All this time I've considered it beaten anyway, because as a kid I'd die before I even knew what to do, and I just considered it too unfair.

I'll go back and do it right soon. Then I'll consider it completed.

I have to assume this was Welcome To The Machine, although Dark Water, Hard Water and that Atlantis level with the fucking ridiculous jumps come to mind too.

If it's not Welcome To The Machine then it's time to man up lady, because you already beat the hardest level in video gaming right there.

P.S. Sorry for the gendered language, I don't really want to mess with anyone who can beat Comix Zone and Thunder Force

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life[/b] Make it to the second year, find the monotony of living on a farm with a wife who says one repeated phrase maddening, while already having the best available cattle in the game, start over, marry different girl, repeat until I sold the game. Still haunts me.

Actually, that game never truly ends. The closest thing to an ending happens when you get the credits in your mailbox after getting married. So if you've been married in the game, you have essentially beaten it.

[CFFJR]

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life[/b] Make it to the second year, find the monotony of living on a farm with a wife who says one repeated phrase maddening, while already having the best available cattle in the game, start over, marry different girl, repeat until I sold the game. Still haunts me.

Actually, that game never truly ends. The closest thing to an ending happens when you get the credits in your mailbox after getting married. So if you've been married in the game, you have essentially beaten it.

I'm afraid that's not quite right dude. I know since I once put in the heavy time investment it takes to complete the original release of this game.

The original gamecube game has six chapters comprising 10 in-game years. You get married after the first chapter/first year, and it does keep going, but...

At the end of the sixth chapter

your character dies of old age, and you get a modified ending that shows both everyone moving on in the wake of your death, and what your adult son ultimately decided to do with his life, depending on how you influenced his interests when he was a child.

That's the ending, and the game stops there. You can not play that file any more after that.

The two rereleases, Another Wonderful Life (female protagonist) and Special Edition (on PS2) soften the time requirement from 10 years down to 6. At the end of chapter 6,

your character still dies and you get the same possible endings, (though Special Edition may feature a daughter rather than a son, a normally random event you can influence in the first chapter if you wish) but the game will then allow you to continue playing if you wish, as sort of a representation of heaven.

And that's that. It takes a long ass time to do no matter which version you're playing of course, but the original release takes the cake with 10 years.

I know the Wonderful Life games aren't popular entries in the series, but I loved them despite their differences.